¹⁹ He dealt craftily with our people and forced our ancestors to abandon their infants so that they would die.^(A)

¹⁷ For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I may show my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”^{(A) 18} So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses.

God’s Wrath and Mercy

¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”^(B)

³⁰ But King Sihon of Heshbon was not willing to let us pass through, for the Lord your God had hardened his spirit and made his heart defiant in order to hand him over to you, as he has now done.^(A)

The Eighth Plague: Locusts

10 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them^(A)

¹⁶ But this is why I have let you live: to show you my power and to make my name resound through all the earth.^(A)

²¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.^(A)

²³ After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cry for help rose up to God from their slavery.^(A)

¹⁶ “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”^(A)

The Israelites Are Oppressed

⁸ Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.^{(A) 9} He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.^{(B) 10} Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.^{(C) 12} But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. ¹³ The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.^(D)